Site Search

Subscribe

Meta

One or two that I can’t understand, but plenty of nice clues today. No doubt there is a Nina staring me in the face, but apart from several references to pans and to cakes I can’t see anything. Eimi has certainly made work for himself with 36 clues — the most I’ve ever seen in a daily cryptic.

Across

1

BEDWARMER — (mad brewer)*

6

TORT E

9

POACHER — 2 defs

10

CU PC {t}AKE{n} — does this help with the incomprehensible words of ‘Mrs Robinson’?

11

PE{W}TER

12

STOL(L)EN

15

PA{t}ELLA I think: Only Chambers seems to give the patella as the knee-pan, although the COD gives the origin of patella as connected to a shallow dish, but it looks as if the meaning of dish as a pan has been stretched to dish as a food, and this is too far for me, if I’m understanding it all correctly: OK pan can = dish and dish can = eg paella, but I don’t think the equals should be transitive

17

DOUGHNUT — filled in simply because a doughnut is I suppose an unhealthy food and it’s the only word that fits, but ‘Surround John Prescott …’???

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Independent.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

5 Responses to “Independent 6976/Eimi”

DOUGHNUT is where MPs gather around the speaker so the Chamber does not look empty on TV, I think. Some great clues in this, e.g. POACHER, PLUMY. Think it’s just a PANCAKE Tuesday theme. Tough but very satisfying.

A nice way of incorporating Shrove Tuesday I thought, though I found this fairly tough going. My knowledge of pans and cakes has improved though, so all good. Enjoyed the PLUMY clue a lot. I don’t doubt there’s a genius clue involving gr8, u r, lol and suchlike just waiting to be written!

One thing I have often wondered about the Indy puzzle given the tendency towards topical themes (and apologies if this should be asked in the Chatroom!)is if Eimi and co. decide in advance who’s doing what. Do the setters call dibs on time-specific themes way in advance?

Yes, Richard, the idea was that for each of the across lines the clues could read pan, cake, although rather cheekily on occasion.

The constraints brought about the large number of clues, which could only have fitted if some were extremely brief, e.g. 1 Down. It also threw up a few unusual words, for which I’ve tried to provide the easiest clues.

To answer Ali, and I think it’s appropriate as the question was generated by a themed (or is it a Nina as it’s not explicit) crossword, some setters book a spot in advance and occasionally I’ll look in the pot and see if anyone has come up with anything topical and if not, I’ll have a go myself, as here and on Armistice Day, etc.

Paella and patella are both defined as pans in Collins, a coincidence I hadn’t noticed until I became an expert on pans and cakes for this puzzle.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Don't forget to scroll down to the Captcha before you click 'Submit Comment'